March 2009 This report provides an economic approach to assessing the benefits that might be associated with healthy eating.
London Economics were commissioned by the School Food Trust to undertake an analysis of the economics of healthy eating. This work builds on the work that was completed in 2005 in relation to the costs associated with the implementation of Caroline Walker Trust nutritional guidelines and the baseline assessment of school meal take up in primary and secondary schools in 2006.
The work presented here provides an economic approach to assessing the benefits that might be associated with healthy eating specifically and any educational intervention more generally. London Economics were not tasked to establish a causal link between specific interventions relating to school meals/ healthy eating and educational attainment in general, rather to establish a model for estimating the economic benefits that might occur were there to be any change in the distribution of attainment within the National Curriculum.
